to her desires as a general principle, will have learned to withstand a passion for dress and personal ornaments; and the woman who has conquered this propensity has surmounted one of the most domineering temptations which assail the sex; while this seemingly little circumstance, if neglected and the opposite habit formed, may be the first step to every successive error, and every consequent distress. Those women who are ruined by seduction in the lower classes, and those who are made miserable by ambitious marriages in the higher, will be more frequently found to owe their misery to an ungoverned passion for dress and show, than to motives more apparently bad. An habitual moderation in this article growing out of a pure self-denying principle, and not arising from the affectation of a singularity, which may have more pride in it than others feel in the indulgence of any of the things which this singularity renounces, includes many valuable advantages. Modesty, simplicity, humility, economy, prudence, liberality, charity, are almost inseparably, and not very remotely, connected with an habitual victory over personal vanity and a turn to personal expense. The inferior and less striking virtues are the smaller pearls, which serve to string and connect the great ones.

An early and unremitting zeal in forming the mind to a habit of attention, not only produces the outward expression of good breeding, as one of its incidental advantages; but involves, or rather creates, better qualities than itself; while vacancy

and inattention not only produce vulgar manners, but are usually the indication, if not of an ordinary yet of a neglected understanding. To the habitually inattentive, books offer little benefit; company affords little improvement; while a self-imposed attention sharpens observation, and creates a spirit of inspection and enquiry which often lifts a common understanding to a degree of eminence in knowledge, sagacity, and usefulness, which indolent or negligent genius does not always reach. A habit of attention exercises intellect, quickens discernment, multiplies ideas, enlarges the power of combining images and comparing characters, and gives a faculty of picking up improvement from circumstances the least promising; and of gaining instruction from those slight but frequently recurring occasions, which the absent and the negligent turn to no account. Scarcely any thing or person is so unproductive as not to yield some fruit to the attentive and sedulous collector of ideas. But this is far from being the highest praise of such a person; she who early imposes on herself a habit of strict attention to whatever she is engaged in begins to wage early war with wandering thoughts, useless reveries, and that disqualifying train of busy but unprofitable imaginations, by which the idle are occupied, and the absent are absorbed. She who keeps her intellectual powers in action studies with advantage herself, her books, and the world. Whereas they, in whose undisciplined minds vagrant thoughts have been suffered to range without restriction on ordinary occasions, will find they

cannot easily call them home, when wanted to assist in higher duties. Thoughts, which are indulged in habitual wandering, will not be readily restrained in the solemnities of public worship or of private devotion.

But in speaking of the necessary habits, it must be noticed that the habit of unremitting industry, which is, indeed, closely connected with those of which we have just made mention, cannot be too early or too sedulously formed. Let not the sprightly and the brilliant reject industry as a plebeian quality, as a quality to be exercised only by those who have their bread to earn, or their fortune to make. But let them respect it, and adopt it as a habit to which many elevated characters have, in a good measure, owed their distinction, The masters in science, the leaders in literature, legislators and statesmen, even apostles and reformers would not, at least in so eminent a degree, have enlightened, converted, and astonished the world, had they not been eminent possessors of this sober and unostentatious quality. It is the quality to which the immortal Newton modestly ascribed his own vast attainments; who, when he was asked by what means he had been enabled to make that successful progress which struck mankind with wonder, replied, that it was not so much owing to any superior strength of genius, as to a habit of patient thinking, laborious attention, and close application. We must, it is true, in this instance, make some deductions for the humility of the speaker. Yet it is not over-rating its value,

to assert that industry is the sturdy and hardworking pioneer, who by persevering labour removes obstructions, overcomes difficulties, clears intricacies, and thus facilitates the march, and aids the victories, of genius.

An exact habit of economy is of the same family with the two foregoing qualities; and, like them, is the prolific parent of a numerous offspring of virtues. For want of the early ingrafting of this practice on its only legitimate stock, a sound principle of integrity,—may we not, in too many instances in subsequent life, almost apply to the fatal effects of domestic profuseness, what Tacitus observes of a lavish profligacy in the expenditure of public money, that an exchequer which is exhausted by prodigality will probably be replenished by crimes?

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Those who are early trained to scrupulous punctuality in the division of time, and an exactness to the hours of their childish business, will have learnt how much the economy of time is promoted by habits of punctuality when they shall enter on the more important business of life. By getting one employment cleared away, exactly as the succeeding employment shall have a claim to be despatched, they will learn two things; that one business must not trench on the time which belongs to another business, and to set a value on those odd quarters of an hour, and even minutes, which are so often lost between successive duties, for want of calculation, punctuality, and arrangement.

A habit of punctuality is perhaps one of the

earliest which the youthful mind may be made capable of receiving; and it is so connected with truth, with morals, and with the general good government of the mind, as to render it important that it should be brought into exercise on the smallest occasions. But I refrain from enlarging on this point, as it will be discussed in another part of this work.*

It requires perhaps still more sedulity to lay early the first foundation of those interior habits which are grounded on watchfulness against such faults as do not often betray themselves by breaking out into open excesses; and which there would therefore be less discredit in indulging. It should more particularly make a part of the first elements of education, to try to infuse into the mind that particular principle which stands in opposition to those evil tempers to which the individual pupil is more immediately addicted. As it cannot be followed up too closely, so it can hardly be set about too early. May we not borrow an important illustration of this truth from the fabulous hero of the Grecian story? He who was one day to perform exploits which should fill the earth with his renown, began by conquering in his infancy; and it was a preliminary to his delivering the world from monsters in his riper years, that he should set out by strangling the serpents in his cradle.

It must, however, be observed, that diligent care is to be exercised, that, together with the gradual formation of these and other useful habits, an

* See Chapter on Definitions.